Who are we? What is our purpose? What is truth? Thoughtful comments appreciated.

Friday, May 29, 2009

More on the Soul

Dallas Willard is one of my favorite authors. Here's what he says about the soul:

"The soul is one non-physical dimension of the person. A human person is a non-physical (spiritual) entity that has an essential involvement with a particular physical body. The brain, then—a piece of meat that is of more than usual interest—is one part of the embodied dimension of the human person. It too is integrated by the soul into one life, along with all of the dimensions of the person (at least when all is well).

These matters are especially important as Christians often treat the soul as recipient of salvation, and the other dimensions of human life are left out—especially the bodily and the social, but also thought and feeling. Redemption in Christ is a retrieving of the entire person from alienation from God and opposition to God.

The soul is not some separable part of us that eventually gets to go to heaven while everything else about is left out."